This actually does make a lot of sense. My late mother worked until she was 69 when my brother put serious pressure on her to retire. She worked part-time in a fashion shop and she loved it. She enjoyed the company and meeting people. She didn't really want to retire then but had got fed up with my brother constantly nagging her so she finally gave in and retired. It was the worst thing she could have done. Within a few years she developed Alzheimers Disease. From then on it was a steady decline. She went from being a very active woman who didn't look (or act) her age to a woman who didn't even recognise her own family or be able to do basic things for herself. Before the disease really took hold, she remarked to me more than once that she was fed up staring at four walls day in, day out. My brother says now (hindsight is a great thing) that he meant the best for her but forcing her to give up her job was the worst thing he ever did.

I do believe if she had kept working the onset of Alzheimers could have been delayed. By contrast my Mum's life-long best friend is now 88 years old. She is in a care home because she has now gone senile but she was still doing voluntary work at the local hospital, driving her car, travelling alone to Spain to visit her son, baby-sitting her great-great grandchildren and being very active up until early last year when, unfortunately, she took a series of mini strokes which sadly has left her senile.